About Me

After almost nine years at Gourmet Magazine, I need a new forum for adventure sharing. My heart is split between country I consider home and a city that keeps me excited. It's food and drink that tie them together.

Friday, September 7, 2012

Tomato Pie - nuff said...

Colavita founder John Profaci Sr.told The New York Timeslast month that, “There is no tomato in this country or in Italy that’s as good as the New Jersey tomato. Some of the characteristics might be good, but there’s nothing that can match it overall.”

I happen to live two miles from New Jersey, just over the border in Pennsylvania, where I grow my own tomatoes. I have just three plants. This summer, my tomato plants grew to be almost seven feet tall. On any given day, I can pick between two and 12 ripe, red fruits. I’ve been eating a lot of tomatoes.

I’m not telling you this to brag. I’m telling you this to prove one of the points of this column: When you choose to eat with a hyper-local mantra, you’ll be eating a lot of a certain thing for a short period of time, and that thing you’ll be eating might be the world’s best. I live in a part of the world that, according to Mr Profaci—a verifiable expert when it comes to flavor—grows some of the best tomatoes, so I grow tomatoes. If I lived in Florida, I’d grow oranges and you’d be reading a recipe for marmalade. If I lived in Michigan, I’d grow cherries and you’d be reading about pie. Well, you’re still reading about pie—tomato pie.

I waited to make this recipe until I had a pile of tomatoes that were so ripe they bruised if I looked at them the wrong way. When I cut into them, they poured with juice. Normally cooking such ripe tomatoes requires a lot of evaporation, but this pie has a biscuit crust that sucks up the excess tomato juice. It is great hot, cold, or at room temperature. Most importantly, it uses up a lot of tomatoes.

Tomato Pie

Serves 6 to 8

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

fine sea salt

6 tablespoons unsalted butter

3/4 cup whole milk

2 1/2 pounds very ripe tomatoes

1/2 cup mayonnaise

2 tablespoons lemon juice

3 scallions, finely chopped

1/4 cup basil, finely chopped

1/4 cup cilantro, finely chopped

freshly ground black pepper

4 ounces grated sharp cheddar cheese

Directions:

Stir together flour, baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Cut in butter with a pastry blender or your fingertips, then stir in milk with a fork (dough will be wet). Divide dough in half and wrap each half in plastic wrap and transfer to the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Unwrap 1 dough, spreading the plastic wrap on a work surface. Cover the dough with another piece of plastic wrap. Roll dough out to fit in a 9-inch pie plate. Remove top layer of plastic, transfer the dough to the pie plate using the remaining plastic wrap, and then peel off plastic.

Roll top crust out in the same manner as the bottom crust, transferring to the pie plate using the plastic wrap, then peel off plastic. Cut 1 steam hole in crust, then bake until the crust is golden and crisp and the filling is bubbling, 35 to 40 minutes.

3 comments:

This tomato pie looks divine. I'll have to beg some tomatoes from my family—we moved into a fixer-upper in mid-June and had to leave a lovely, established garden. There has not been time to build raised beds... perhaps this fall? Found you after seeing you and your family farm featured in one of my "home" mags. We are also in PA, albeit the complete opposite end (southwestern). For the past couple of years, we grew had an heirloom tomato (and brought seeds with us) called the "Black Krim." It would be so fabulous in this pie, I suspect.

Love the idea of local, in-season food. I love the idea of local, in-season life in general. Our son's baseball coach told us that kids are playing baseball all year in indoor facilities, and I said, "Huh?! That's like watermelon in December! Ridiculous!" Keep up the great blog. (And you've inspired me—after canning apple butter today, I am going to establish my great homemade yogurt plan.)

scrapple, eh? I'll admit I just had to google that term... have never had it. however, we have friends here who raise highland cattle and berkshire hogs, and we get our pork from them, so I could probably put together a scrapple of sorts if I try... thanks for more food ideas.